News Feature | May 13, 2015

Patient Health Declines When Remote Monitoring Ends

Katie Wike

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

clinical trials

Patient’s health declined after remote monitoring programs ended, according to researchers.

A report published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research has shown that, while patients benefit from remote monitoring programs, their outcomes often decline when the monitoring ends. According to MobiHealth News, researchers used data from 348 patients in Partners HealthCare’s Boston-area hospitals to analyze the outcomes of those in the Connected Cardiac Care Program (CCCP).

An equal number of control patients and patients enrolled in CCCP were analyzed. Those enrolled in CCCP used a variety of monitoring devices which measured blood pressure, heart rate, weight, and blood oxygen saturation. They were asked daily to answer questions about heart failure-related symptoms on a touch-screen computer.

This information was then sent to nurses for analysis who were then able to reach out to patients based on their data. Twice a week, patients received educational sessions by phone on topics like diet, exercise, and proper monitoring.

iHealth Beat explains hospitalization and mortality rates did decrease for CCCP patients. However, once the patients were no longer monitored remotely, hospitalization rates increased. Additionally:

  • after 30 days, 24 CCCP patients had been hospitalized, compared with 49 in the control group
  • after 60 days, 43 CCCP patients had been hospitalized, compared with 68 in the control group
  • after 120 days, 75 CCCP patients had been hospitalized, compared with 97 in the control group
  • after 120 days, five CCCP patients had died, compared with 12 in the control group

Researchers also pointed out various factors could have contributed to the CCCP group's higher hospitalization rate. These included:

  • The CCCP patients became more sensitive to the disease's early warning signs because of the educational programs they received;
  • The CCCP patients could have failed to develop self-management skills because they received close attention during the study period; and
  • More control group patients dying earlier than CCCP patients.

Researchers concluded, “CCCP was associated with significantly lower hospitalization rates up to 90 days and significantly lower mortality rates over 120 days of the program. However, these effects did not persist beyond the 120-day program duration.”